Improvement in car-brake shoes



H. wERNTz.

Car-Brake Shoe. No. 63,369. Patented Mar. 2o, 1666.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE HENRY WERNTZ, OF PINE GROVE, PENNSYLVANIA.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 53,369, dated March 20, 1866.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HENRY WERNTZ, of Pine Grove, Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, have invented a new and Improved Mode of Attaching Shoes to Brake-Bars; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same, reference being had to the annexed drawings, making a part of this specilication, in which- Figure l is a side view of my invention; Fig. 2, an outer edge view of the same; Fig. 3, a horizontal section of the same, taken in the line X X, Fig. I.

Similar letters of reference indica-te corresponding parts.

This invention consists in a new and improved mannerof attaching shoes to the brakebars of railroad-cars, as hereinafter fully shown and described, whereby the shoes may be very readily applied to and detached from the brakebar without removing the entire brake from the car, thereby admitting of a brakeman or any employ on a train removing a broken or worn-out shoe and applying a new one at any time when required and with very little delay.

A represents one of the hangers of a brakebar, which may be constructed and applied in the usual way, and B is a metal socket firmly secured by bolts or screws to the lower part of the hanger. This socket may be described as heilig composed of a flat plate, a., fitted snugly against the hanger, through which plate the screws or bolts pass into the hanger. The ends of this plate are bent or curved outward and inward toward each other, forming dovetail flanges b b, as shown clearly in Fig. 1, and at one side of the plate, adjoining the flanges b, there is a lip, c, said lip serving as bearings for one side of the shoe O.

The shoe O may be constructed ot' wood or other suitable material, and said shoe is curved or made concave at its face side, corresponding to the curvature of the wheel, and the rear part of the shoe is notched at each end, as shown at d, so that it may be fitted in the socket B, between the dovetail flanges b b, as shown in Fig. 1.

The shoe is retained in the socket, or prevented from sliding laterally out therefrom, by the lips c at one side of the socket and by a catch, D, attached to the side of the hanger at the opposite side ofthe socket. This catch is composed, in this instance, of a latch, E, pivoted to the hanger and resting in a loop, F, when turned over the side of the shoe, and a button, G, also pivoted to the hanger, and in such a relative position with the latch as to be capable, when turned down, of holding thelatch in the loop. (See Fig. l.) The dovetail connection of the shoe in the socket prevents the former from moving out from the latter in a forward direction.

From the above description it will be seen that in order to remove a shoe from the socket all that is required is simply to turn up the button G and raise the latch E, and the shoe may be drawn out laterally from the socket. A new one may then beinserted and the catch readjusted to hold theshoe in the socket. This may be done without detaching any parts of the brake, and at any time when the car is at rest.

Cars, therefore, can always be provided with good and efficientshoes, as the latter may be applied at any time and place when the cars are not in motion, and with but very little delay.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The metallic socket B, formed with the dovetail llanges b at each end and the lips c at one side, in combination with a suitable catch or latch, D, and the shoe O, notched so as to tit into the socket, all being applied to the hanger A substantially as and for the purpose herein set forth.

HENRY W EBN TZ.

-Witnesses CHARLES DUEL, ED. T. FILBER'r. 

